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VAT practical manual 2022.

Intra-EU acquisitions of goods by companies and professionals

Requirements that must be met for this taxable event to occur:

  1. The power to dispose of tangible personal property for consideration must be obtained.

  2. The goods must be transported from another Member State to the territory of application of the tax by the transferor, the purchaser or a carrier acting in the name and on behalf of any of them. If there was no transport from another Member State, the operation would be treated as internal delivery in the State in which it occurs.

  3. The transferor must be a businessman or professional.

  4. The acquirer must be a businessman or professional or legal entity that does not act as such.

Examples:

  • A retailer places an order with a French businessman by telephone. Subsequently, the French businessman transports the goods in his van to the territory where the tax is applied and delivers them.

    The retail trader makes an intra-community acquisition of goods subject to VAT in Spain when all the requirements are met: there is an acquisition, a transport of the goods from another Member State to the territory of application of Spanish VAT, the transferor is a businessman or professional and the purchaser is also a businessman or professional (although he is taxed under the special regime of the equivalence surcharge), the acquisitions intra-community transactions that you carry out in the territory of application of the Spanish VAT are subject to said tax.

  • A Spanish businessman delivers goods to a businessman established in Holland who, without having taken them out of Spanish territory, sells them to another Spanish company.

    There are two deliveries of goods:

    The first is the sale of products to the Dutch company: In this case there is no intra-community operation, since the goods do not leave Spanish territory, therefore, VAT must be charged. The second is the sale in Spain by the Dutch company, in this case, it is also an internal operation subject to VAT since there is no transport outside of Spain.

Since March 1, 2020, the concept of intra-community acquisition of goods includes obtaining the power of disposal over tangible movable assets within the framework of a consignment sales agreement for goods.